To those who knew him, it may be hard to believe that Garnet “Sam” Richardson was a shy, quiet child. At least that’s the way his brother, Ernie, described him.
When he grew up, however, Sam Richardson became a hard-sweeping, wise-cracking bon vivant who was never short on words and a key part of one of the greatest curling teams to ever take the ice.
Richardson passed away on Thursday after a long illness. He was 82.
Along with his brother Ernie and cousins Arnold and Wes, the famed Richardson team won four Briers over a five-year period (Mel Perry replaced Wes on the fourth championship team).
Sam Richardson played second on the squad and was known as one of the best sweepers of his era, a time when corn brooms were the norm. The Richardsons won the Brier and Scotch Cup, emblematic of the world championship, in 1959, ’60, ’62 and ’63.
In 1976, he also helped guide Jack MacDuff and his team from Newfoundland and Labrador to the Canadian championship, still the only time that province has won the curling crown. He became that team’s unofficial coach, scout, manager and driver, and steered the unheralded team to one of the biggest upsets in the sport’s history.
Along with his talent on the ice, Sam Richardson also became known as a tremendous after-dinner speaker, delighting audiences from coast to coast. His quick wit and way with a joke made him exceptionally popular whether he was talking in front of 1,000 people or around a table after a curling game.
Sam Richardson grew up in Stoughton, Sask., during the dust bowl of the 1930s. His parents struggled to make ends meet and took in boarders and did laundry to make ends meet. They eventually relocated to Regina where father Melvin began working as a carpenter. Sons Ernie and Sam eventually followed him into business turning their work into a family business, which built homes all over the city.
In 1956, during a lunch break while building a home, a carpenter from Manitoba told the young Richardsons they should try curling and the boys took the advice and joined the Wheat City Curling Club, which had just opened. The early years weren’t all that successful.
“When we won a game – which wasn’t that often,” Sam said in the book The Brier, “we would race home and wake up our parents just so they’d know how good their sons were.”
But the team improved quickly and by 1959 the Richardsons were Canadian champions.
Three more titles followed and they might have won a fifth in 1964 in Charlottetown except for a late-night lobster dinner. Tied with a 7-1 record heading into the final game, the team went to a friend’s house where they each consumed two or three lobsters. It was their first time eating the crustaceans and for the Prairie boys, this was a different sort of meal that didn’t sit well.
“Every time I rolled over, Wes rolled over,” Sam recalled in The Brier. “I don’t think any of us slept a wink all night.”
They came out flat the next day and lost to eventual winner Lyall Dagg of British Columbia.
Shortly after that Brier, the rink disbanded, with their legacy indelibly etched.
The team was inducted into the Saskatchewan and Canadian Curling Halls of Fame and Canadian Sports Hall of Fame.
